–By Michael Gerhard Martin

When I was an undergraduate writer-boy, I thought myself a Hemingway scholar. I carried a valise, and tried to take up pipe smoking and hunting and tweed. I drank hard and thought existentially, and wished piously for wormwood visions.

The well-thumbed copy of Papa’s Complete Stories in my valise was the Finca Viggia edition, after all, and while I still don’t know what Finca Vigia is, I knew at the time that it meant authenticity. The book’s broken spine and worn pages affirmed my own authenticity. I was going to be a writer. I was a writer. Look, world, at my valise, my fountain pen, my Finca Viggia edition, and comprehend!

Those among us not embarrassed by our twenty-year-old selves are likely slaves to ridiculous nostalgia. Continue reading →